Tales of Fortune
by Azremodehar
Summary: A continuation of Fortune, Queen of the World. Not necessarily continuous.


Note: This fic is a sequel of sorts to Fortune, Queen of the World. A sequel in that it takes place after Fortune, 'of sorts' because it'll probably have at most one more part. I'm not sure; it depends of how my vague notions of the Fortuneverse develop. )

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**I Bemoan the Wounds of Fortune**

Kaiba Seto did not fidget. Nor did he twitch, or pout, or do anything which might have given away his state of mind. _Stone-faced_, some might have described him. Or so he hoped. The airplane would be landing in Cairo soon, taking him on his father's business, and his own.

He had two of the four Blue-Eyes White Dragons in the world. They were safe in his briefcase, along with hundreds of other cards. Each was valuable, and each was strong, but none so much as those two. Rumour had it that the third was owned by someone in Egypt. He would have that card.

Three Blue-Eyes would make his power in Magic&Wizards almost unrivaled. Only Exodia could even theoretically trump him then, and those odds were so long they might as well have been a flat-out impossibility. His fingers drummed once on the arm of his seat, a sign of impatience that he quickly suppressed. It wouldn't do for the man sitting across from him to notice.

"President Kaiba?" The flight attendant leaned over Gozaburou's seat a little.

"Yes?" he replied, a bit gruffly.

"We're going to be landing soon. If you would fasten your seatbelt…?" Kaiba followed the woman's instructions without having to be directly told; the man who named himself 'father' did likewise.

----------

The view outside was phenomenal, but Kaiba didn't spare it more than a glance; it wasn't his concern. "So you say I'll be on my own in Cairo," he said, looking directly at his father. Gozaburou nodded. Kaiba felt his lips start to tighten, but stopped it; the resultant tightening around his father's eyes was immensely satisfying.

"What's the point in dragging me along then?" he asked.

"I didn't know you would be excluded until we were about to leave," Gozaburou replied reluctantly. "You may still learn something. Just don't cause me any trouble." Kaiba resisted the urge to snort. Given his way, he'd avoid his father as much as he possibly could.

"I'll stay out of your way," he replied. His father nodded, and that was the end of that.

They separated ways right at the airport, Gozaburou heading to the first of many meetings, and Kaiba himself going to check in at his hotel. All but two of the security guards left with his father. Those two guards were already loyal to Kaiba.

Finally alone, Kaiba allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. Everything was going exactly according to his plan. It wasn't often he managed to engineer something like this to his liking, but after months of research, I quickly became apparent that there was no way he could find the third Blue-Eyes – if it was actually in Egypt at all – without going there himself.

After checking in to the hotel, Kaiba waited half an hour, before opening his briefcase, and pulling out the mobile phone he had prepared beforehand. It had been difficult to set this part up, too, under his father's nose, but he had succeeded. The first number he dialed belonged to his primary contact here in Egypt.

"Hameed." The voice on the other side was clipped, cultured, almost British-sounding.

"It's me," Kaiba replied. Hameed would recognize his voice.

"Ah yes, my anonymous friend. What can I do for you and your ample wallet today?" That question betrayed his voice; no matter how hard Hameed tried, he wasn't really as cultured as he sounded. But he _was_ a very good actor.

"You said if I came to Egypt, you would have more detailed information for me," Kaiba stated. "Don't make me wait; you know you'll get nothing." He could almost see the man – a small man, younger than he sounded, but with hair already thinning on top of his head, Kaiba knew – nodding his head rapidly on the other side of the phone.

"This is only rumour, now, the others will tell you. Do not trust them; trust _me._ I have seen it. In the hands of a former colleague. It was stolen by a street boy. He looked foreign."

"Where?" Kaiba asked, very carefully _not_ gritting his teeth.

"South. By the old capitol. The old tombs. You know? A small village. He hasn't been seen there in a while though; rumour has it he's been spotted in Cairo." Hameed sounded hopeful.

"Where?" Kaiba asked again. Getting information from Hameed could be like pulling teeth sometimes.

"I don't know!" Hameed replied. "Cairo, somewhere. I'm not in Cairo, I don't know. You see? My money?"

"Will be in your account." Kaiba didn't give him the chance to reply; he shut the phone off decisively. And frowned. He didn't have time to make the contacts that he needed to find the boy. Nor did he have the time to traipse about the city searching for himself.

_A compromise then._ "The two of you see what you can dig up," he said to the ubiquitous bodyguards. "I'm going to look for myself." Not giving _them_ the chance to reply either (he already knew they'd follow orders), he swept out of the room, briefcase in hand, for the hot streets of Cairo.

_A foreign-looking street boy._ _He's probably sold it by now, but if I find him, it'll at least be the next link in the chain. _

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Bakura strode down the streets of Cairo like he belonged there. His white hair and pale eyes stood out, and that was unfortunate, but he refused to hide them with colour or contacts. The spirit approved.

"_Be yourself,"_ he always said. "_Even when you're pretending to be someone else, be yourself, and people will believe it."_ So he did. Like most of the spirit's advice, it worked beautifully. Occasionally, there was something that didn't, but Bakura suspected that that had more to do with modern technology than any inherent failing in the spirit's methodology.

Today, except for the spirit of course (who was currently quiet in his mind), Bakura was alone. As often as not though, Malik was with him. But they had different things to do this week, and so they likely wouldn't see each other until afterwards. If they _did,_ it would mean something had gone wrong. He didn't expect anything to go wrong though. It seldom ever did.

His mind was drifting along those lines, and others – planning lunch, planning where to stay the night – when he felt a jolt of— not quite alarm, but close, from the spirit. He slowed casually, his eyes flickering over the seething throng of people, looking for the source of the spirit's reaction.

"_That one._ _The foreigner with the briefcase. Around your age."_ It was the first the spirit had said to him since its morning greeting. It didn't take Bakura's eyes long to find the person the spirit was talking about – short hair, maybe thirteen or fourteen, and…

"_He looks Japanese,"_ Bakura remarked in surprise. Maybe just East Asian in general, but there was just _something_ about him, which made Bakura think he was seeing a countryman, for the first time in a very long time.

"_That's not all he looks like."_

"_What?"_ In lieu of a reply, Bakura got an image, of the same boy; as a man, with darker skin, that same golden hue that the spirit wore in the memories he shared, dressed like a priest, and holding the Rod.

"Whoa." Inadvertently, Bakura spoke out loud. He didn't know if it was that, or his hair, or something indefinable else, but suddenly, the priest-clone's eyes snapped right to him, and narrowed, cold, and hard. Automatically, he started trying to slip away, moving with the crowd, ducking slightly, _blending…_

He knew he had failed utterly when the grip like steel descended on his shoulder. Once again, his response was automatic, turning on whoever it was, knife in hand, ready to—He didn't get the chance, whatever he would have done (kill? Maim? Wound? He wasn't sure). The priest-clone grabbed his hand, and diverted it using some kind of martial arts.

There was a bit of confusion then, as Bakura tried to escape – almost succeeding several times – and the priest-clone tried – and eventually succeeded – in manhandling him into a dead-end alley. No escape.

Bakura looked up (damn it) at his captor, silent, and blank-faced. _What now?_

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At first when Kaiba spotted the boy, his eyes seemed to slide off of him, around him, like he wasn't there, or at least, wasn't interesting. That, in itself should have caught his attention, but he didn't even notice that he didn't notice, until the boy started staring at _him. _

The boy saw him noticing, and started to slip away. Kaiba's reaction was almost instinctive, and moments later, he had the boy pinned in a back alley. _Keep an eye on his hands,_ some instinct spoke to him. The boy gave him a blank look, as practiced and schooled as Kaiba's own.

Up close, Kaiba was surprised to see Asian features under the boy's shock of white hair. And it struck him like a lightning bolt.

"_You_ have the Blue-Eyes, don't you!" The words came almost instinctively, from somewhere in the back of his mind, in accented Arabic.

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Bakura stiffened, his eyes widening before he could control himself. _Ohshitohshitohshit._ It was just a moment though; he prayed that the priest-clone didn't recognize it.

"I- I'm sorry?" he replied. "Yes, I have blue eyes; is there something wrong with that?" In the back of his mind, he could sense the spirit's approval. The priest-clone narrowed his eyes.

"Don't give me that shit. I know you know what I'm talking about." The priest-clone had an accent, but it wasn't unfamiliar to Bakura.

_He sounds Japanese._

"I, um, no?" Bakura offered. Should he use the Ring? The temptation to call the darkness was great; surely he could escape that way. A game of darkness… He thought about the card, the valuable card in his pocket. Only the spirit knew he had it; he hadn't even told Malik. With that as the stakes, this priest-clone would surely accept the challenge.

_No. I can't risk it._

"_Good. I would have said something if you didn't think of it yourself."_ The spirit's voice was approving again. "_Can you get yourself out of this?"_ Bakura didn't respond, and the spirit fell silent after that. He _could_ get himself out of this; he just had to outwit a priest-clone. Not a problem. Not a problem.

----------

Kaiba was running out of Arabic, and the boy was being frustratingly unresponsive. He could try Japanese, or Chinese, but the odds were just as good that he didn't speak either of those.

"Tell me where the card is," Kaiba said again, more calmly this time. "I will play you for it, I will trade you for it, I will buy it from you. I want that card." The boy shook his head still.

"I don't know any card," he said. He shook his head again. "I have blue eyes, but I don't have any kind of card. You want a credit card or something? I don't do that kind of thing." The boy gave Kaiba a suspicious, almost sullen look. Kaiba scowled darkly. He didn't have time for this.

"You're coming with me," he said. He let go of the boy, for just a moment, to get a better grip on his wrist, and—He shouldn't have underestimated the boy, but Kaiba _never_ would have guessed that that boy could move like _that._

A slip, and a duck, and then he was gone, up a piece of rickety old scaffolding, and vanished over a roof. It was the work of purest will to keep the curse behind his teeth.

----------

Bakura couldn't believe his luck. It _had_ to be luck; nothing else could possibly explain it. What else could possibly compel the priest-clone to _let him go_ for even a moment! It couldn't be the gods; they would be on _his_ side, working _for_ him, not against, unless things had changed drastically in the millennia—

The thoughts weren't precisely his own, Bakura realized. They were filtering through from the spirit; it happened from time to time. Not often, but sometimes, it was almost as if they were one person.

It was frightening, most of the time, when it happened, but at times like these, when Bakura _needed_ the spirit's greater experience, and knowledge, and reflexes, he welcomed it.

The moment was all they needed, then, to slip away from the priest-clone, and scramble up to a nearby roof, and away. They could track the priest-clone with the Ring; it would be no problem now, that they had his _sense._ But first, they needed to escape to safety.

_Regroup. Plan. _It was one of the first things he had learned on his own, in the streets of Egypt. It was a lesson the spirit had reinforced time and again.

It didn't take Bakura long to escape the general vicinity of the priest-clone; the roof road lead easily to places that others couldn't follow. Into _this_ house, out through _that_ garden; turn his jacket inside-out, and hide his hair under the hood… It would be good enough to get to his safe haven, an apartment he and Malik had bought more than a year ago.

Safety first. Security second. Time for everything else after that.

----------

Kaiba didn't find the boy again the next day, or the next. He was growing frustrated; Gozaburou's negotiations were going well, and it seemed like they would be leaving early. His suspicion was confirmed on the morning of his fourth day in Egypt; a message left with his bodyguards, that the negotiations would be concluded that morning; they would be leaving tonight.

This was it. His last chance to find the boy, and the card. _I know he has it. I don't know why, but I do._ But Kaiba had no idea where to start looking. Every avenue he could think of – that he had access too – had already been explored.

"You've been looking for me." Kaiba whirled on the voice. It was the boy – the one he'd been looking for – was perched in the open window.

"_You!_" Kaiba glared, and started towards the boy.

"Ah-ah" The boy chided. He held up his hands – there was something between them, a card—_The_ card, Kaiba realized after a moment. Held between fingers, twisted just slightly. "Another step, and I'll tear it in half." Kaiba froze.

"What do you want?" Kaiba asked, his voice like ice. It struck him that the boy seemed kind of familiar, even beyond having met him once before. The boy smiled, narrow and sharp, and for a moment, bitter.

"You shouldn't ask things like that," the boy said. "But, if you want this card-" he waved it, almost tauntingly at Kaiba "-then you'll play a game with me. But not now. I don't have the time." The smile widened into a toothy grin.

"When!" Kaiba demanded. He didn't have time for this.

"Next time you see me," the boy replied. The card vanished. "Until then." And the boy was gone from his window.

It wasn't until later that Kaiba realized that the boy had been speaking perfect, unaccented Japanese.


End file.
